Books Inspire Black Women To Succeed

A standing-room-only, predominantly African-American female crowd has come to Black Images bookstore to hear her speak about spirituality and self-empowerment.

Using plain talk and religious references, Vanzant talks about suffering and surviving. It's a subject she knows well: She was once a battered wife and a welfare mother and was sexually abused as a child, she says.

Having survived all that, she now dispenses advice on attaining inner peace.

"I don't want you to think I floated down here from heaven," Vanzant says. "I came here from the bowels of hell.

"We're not crazy," she tells the women she calls her sisters. "We're just in the valley. But we can bring ourselves in balance."

Vanzant is apparently striking a chord. After her talk, more than 120 copies of her latest book - The Value in the Valley: A Black Woman's Guide Through Life's Dilemmas (Simon & Schuster, $22) - sell on the spot.

Hers is just one of many books with inspirational messages being snapped up by African-American women.

"There's a big boom right now," says Sonia Williams-Babers, owner of The Black Bookworm in Fort Worth, Texas. "Over half of the black women customers who come in are looking for books on spirituality, self-help and self-esteem."

African-American women have long been interested in inspirational writings. But the attraction to this recent spate of books is being attributed to two factors: They are written by women from the same culture, and the authors speak to those shared experiences.

"These books are from people who look like me and can affirm me as an African-American woman," says Sherry Flewellen-Ervin, a Dallas drug abuse counselor. She uses affirmations from Vanzant's best-seller, Acts of Faith, to motivate her clients, many of them African-American women.

"I'm not being prejudiced. I'm just looking to other women of color who have suffered but are succeeding. It makes me say I can do that, too."

Vanzant, 41, a priestess in the Yoruba religion, says she has license to "talk the talk" about coming out of valleys - negative experiences - because she has been there.

She was raped when she was 9, had a child at 16, spent 11 years on welfare and had a nervous breakdown when she was 22. She has had a string of bad relationships with men. She has dealt with children gone astray.

Through sacrifice, perseverance and faith, she turned her life around. She earned a law degree and became a criminal defense attorney, radio and television talk show host and inspirational speaker. She later left her law practice to write. Since then, her books have uplifted many African-American women.